GOOD SPORTS: Members of the South Rams 9-year-old Young American Football League team (above) watch as Mayor Mike Williams presens a proclaimation to head coach Ramon Casaus (right). The Rams, who competed in the Rookies classification, had an undefeaed season, won  the YAFL Super Bowl  to claim the state championsip, then traveled to Colorado and won that state's tournament as well. Casaus, who has coached the team for three years since they competed as 7-year-olds, said there are approximately 20 YAFL teams in Rio Rancho.

Votes delayed on trucking, zoning issues

By Eric Maddy
The SCORE

A proposed city ordinance that would prevent truckers from parking their big rigs at their homes stalled Wednesday night as the Rio Rancho Governing Body tabled action until its next meeting in December

Councilors received the revised ordinance a short time before the meeting as city staff spent the day incorporating changes made by the Planning and Zoning Board, which met the night before. Councilor Delma Petrulo said she didn’t want to adopt a major city ordinance without having time to consider its full meaning.

“There are still a few questions,” she said. “It is an outstanding ordinance. It is something Rio Rancho absolutely must have. However, we were just handed this. However, I am a little bit uncomfortable voting on something I haven’t had a chance to digest. I’m a very fast reader, but it takes me a little while to digest it.”

With that, she moved to postpone action until the next meeting on Dec. 12, which was eventually approved by a 5-1 vote, with Councilor Marilyn Salzman voting against the motion to table.

The council also delayed action on another controversial issue, first voting to reconsider, then voting to table a second reading on the zoning of a four-acre parcel of land on the corner of NM 528 and Willow Creek Road.

The delay came about because of a problem with the process. Center Industries LLC and Shilleagh LLC, the applicants for the zoning change, did not submit a site plan as is required by city regulation, but the Governing Body approved the rezoning anyway two weeks ago.

At the time attorney Chris Pacheco, who represents the applicants, said that the rezoning request from residential to commercial/retail was necessary to find a buyer for the land and that site plans would be developed by the buyer.

Development director Rob Anderson admitted the city has ignored the site plan requirement in the past. The postponement until the Feb. 13, 2008 meeting will allow staff to consider new language about site plans, including the possible elimination of the requirement, and get any changes made into law before the issue comes back before he council.

Two speakers from the planning and zoning meeting, Tom DeFeo and Ron Meyer, reiterated their support for the trucking ordinance.

DeFeo said he and his wife have lived in 23 homes in 10 different states and “in none of those places, many cities smaller and some larger, did the question of commercial vehicle on residential land ever become an issue. If you put a commercial vehicle on residential land, it then becomes a commercial operation.”

Meyer said adopting the ordinance was part of Rio Rancho’s “maturation process.”

“Passing this ordinance will demonstrate to the rest of the communities in New Mexico that we’re ready to move into being a cosmopolitan area,” he said. “We took the initiative a couple of weeks ago to pass the CNM bond issue, so certainly we are moving forward.”

Meyer also said he council has a “social responsibility” to its residents and that property values decrease in areas where commercial vehicles are allowed to park.

But unlike Tuesday’s meeting, representatives of the trucking industry chose to speak to the Governing Body.

Trucker Toby Padilla disputed claims that property values would go down if trucks are parked nearby.

“Everybody’s property values in Rio Rancho have gone up $50,000, at least,” he said.”If you look at the recent property tax notices (from Sandoval County), you see that our land is valuable.

“I’ve been here over 20 years and have been a part of the community. For me to be told I have to leave impacts me very hard. I cannot afford to build a $20 or $30,000 garage. I will have to up and leave Rio Rancho because I will not leave my truck anywhere else. Vandalism is one of the biggest things we have an issue with right now.

“(The price of) fuel in these tanks is unreal. We have gold in these tanks. It costs me $1,400 to $1,500 a week to maintain my truck in fuel, and to have somebody take it is not right.”

A task force to study this issue was formed this spring after a proposed ordinance was defeated by the council. Padilla challenged the testimony of task force member Gunnar Sandini, who told the Planning and Zoning Board that the Santa Ana Star Casino welcomed the big rigs and parking was free.

“I spoke to those people today,” he said. “They told us they don’t want our trucks there. They don’t want to be responsible for the vandalism.”

Padilla was also critical of city staff, which showed a picture of his truck in a video presentation Tuesday night that the council chose to skip.

“When my truck was being shown you didn’t mention, Dolores, that I was unloading materials to do landscaping,” he said to planning and zoning department member Dolores Wood, the city’s point person on this issue and the controversial sign ordinance three years ago. “It was just mentioned that the trailer was an eyesore was above ground while it was being unloaded, like my trailer stays that way all the time – which it doesn’t.”

Said trucker Paul Lovato: “Just because I make a living with a truck, if I have to hide it in a garage – which I’ll comply if I have to, I’ll be happy to – I become a second class citizen, that because I drive a truck I have to hide. We haul materials into this city to help build this city, but we can’t park our truck at our house. I hauled to this building and the (Santa Ana Star) Center next door.

“I can understand multiple trucks, but I have been able to park at my house for 11 years.”

Lovato said if the council was going to require trucks to be under covered shelter “at least give us a little more time (to build it). It would mean an additional $1,500 or $2,000 we would have to put aside every month.”

The ordinance calls for a six-month grace period for truckers to comply, one year if they are building a garage for their vehicle.

“I know it’s not part of the subject here, but I have to bring it up – a RV is parked 80 percent of the year, maybe 90 percent,” Lovato said. “I don’t have a problem with that. But because they go camping, it’s fine. But because I make my living with a truck, I have to hide it. It might be legal, but it isn’t right.”

Chuck Harder said he moved to Rio Rancho and chose his neighborhood “because I drive a service truck. It is not as big as an over-the-road truck, but it exceeds your weight limit of 14,000 pounds. It’s a requirement of my job to drive my truck home so I’m readily available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you create a situation where I cannot park my vehicle at home, that’s going to obviously affect my job, my income.

“If you guys change the rules, then I’m going to have to learn how to play a different game.”

Ernest Sandoval said “almost everyone knows where I live, because I am the one they show on the news. I know code enforcement knows where I live – they’ve been there plenty of times.

“I understand the trucks are big, but there are a lot of other things that are big, too. There are a lot of other eyesores out there. I don’t complain because my neighbor has weeds growing over the wall and into my yard, or because they have RVs and boats. I don’t complain about that. And they’re complaining because my truck is parked in the back? Of course everybody can see because there is no one behind me and I have no back yard. These trucks are bringing the dirt (for a back yard) and I will eventually put up a wall.

“I can’t sell my house right now. There’s no way I can sell my house. There is no way I can get out of it. I’ll go bankrupt.

“It’s not that easy. It’s like if we were in your shoes and we told you that you could only park one car (on your property).”

Added Sherry York: “My husband has a mechanics truck. He leaves sometimes on Sunday and doesn’t come back until Friday. A lot of people who live up here – and we’ve  lived up here for 25 years – bought property for a reason. We make our living that way.”

York said prospective home buyer who don’t want commercial vehicles on larger lots of a half-acre or more “should go to a gated community where you have association fees and you can’t have that problem. But if you come up here where people have lived for 25 years in a little different lifestyle, it is really unfair to take our businesses away from us. Because that’s what you’d be doing.”

Steve Bollin said he has lived in Rio Rancho for more than 20 year and doesn’t have a truck at his house, but was critical of the council for their appointments to the task force. “To sit down and say that the trucking industry was represented on this ad hoc committee is hogwash,” he said. “If you say the trucking industry is involved, then you should have truly involved the trucking industry. And putting people on the committee by people who want the ordinance is a little underhanded, a little conflict of interest.

“To say a truck devalues property is not proven. Bad landscaping, no landscaping devalues property. A shabby looking house devalues property. A truck parked next to it doesn’t.”

Task force member Jean Montoya said her husband, a trucker, “comes home maybe five days every three or four months. We’ve been married 30 years and I’ve lived in Rio Rancho since 1987. If we cannot bring our truck to our residential lot, where I pay taxes and make a house payment … ” the inference being she would have to move.

Montoya said, “When my husband unhooks from the trailer, he is no longer a commercial driver” but becomes the operator of a personal vehicle. She also said she suggested to the ad hoc committee that one commercial vehicle per residential lot be allowed as long as it had a facility, “not a garage, not a $20,000 structure, but a  legally permitted, enclosed structure where it wouldn’t be totally visible from the road.”

“I think that by not addressing motor homes, boats and other items, it is strictly targeting the semis. It is very unfair. I understand we have a problem, but I don’t think one bad check should make everyone ineligible to write a check in this city.”

The truckers seemed to find at least one sympathetic ear in Councilor Larry Naranjo, who expressed concern about the added burden of a $20 to $30,000 cost truckers could build to shelter heir vehicles. He asked Anderson to research the cost of building such a shelter to conform to city codes and to find out if alternative parking sites are currently available in the city before the next council meeting.

In other business, the council:

* Gave final approval to a request by the city manager to make library services a direct report to his office instead of being under the Parks and Recreation department.

* Confirmed the city’s prioritized legislative requests for the 2008 session of the state Legislature.

* Accepted a memorandum of understanding with Sandoval County for landscaping in Vista Hills.

* Heard the particulars on plans for the March 4, 2008 city election.

* Approved an application for a master winegrower liquor license for Paradise Vineyard & Winery, 1009 23rd Ave.

* Approved two other zoning changes, one in Unit 17 for 27.3 acres on the south side of Idalia Road between Lacuma Road and Vatapa Road and another in Unit 13 for 3.2 acres on 10th Avenue west of Unser Boulevard. The Unit 17 change is from E-1 Estate Residential to Special Use for Single Family Residential Development; the Unit 13 change takes the land from R-1 Residential to C-1 Retail Commercial.